This north central Kansas city is about to play host to the Senior LPGA Championship
Her game travels well. Check the map.
A member of the World Golf Hall of Fame and legendary figure in the sport, Annika Sorenstam has triumphed 72 times on the LPGA Tour, including in 10 majors. The native of Sweden has won worldwide from Colorado to France.
The one place she has not prevailed as a pro: Kansas. Twenty years ago, Sorenstam finished second to another World Golf Hall of Famer, Juli Inkster, in the 2002 U.S. Women’s Open at Prairie Dunes Country Club in Hutchinson, Kan.
This month, Sorenstam returns to the Sunflower State.
Sorenstam and Inkster are among those in the preliminary field scheduled to play in the July 22-24 Senior LPGA Championship at Salina Country Club.
Others on that list comprise a who’s who of women’s pro golf: Hall of Famers Karrie Webb, Hollis Stacy and Jan Stephenson. Additional notables include Laura Davies, Pat Hurst, Brandie Burton, Rosie Jones and Liselotte Neumann.
Told that the 54-hole event with a purse totaling $400,000 arguably amounts to the most significant sports event in Salina history, Sorenstam nearly was at a loss for words.
“Really?” she said.
Landmark sports moments in this city of approximately 47,000 often are considered to be basketball related. The day the Soviet Union national team marched into town in 1975 resonates. So does the night nearly 40 years ago when a junior-to-be college player named Michael Jordan dominated a collection of NBA players.
Before it became the Big 12 Conference, the Big Eight Women’s Basketball Tournament was staged at the Bicentennial Center, now known as the Tony’s Pizza Events Center.
Salina — home to former Kansas State University football star and first-round NFL Draft pick Terence Newman and former MLB manager Gene Mauch — is also the birthplace of another highly decorated golfer.
Bryan Norton won the Kansas Amateur in three different decades, including in 2014, when at age 55 he defeated Sam Stevens, who last month tied for 49th in the U.S. Open at The Country Club in Brookline, Mass.
As a young boy growing up in a home on Overhill Road, a handful of houses from Salina Country Club, Norton would sneak onto and plays rounds at the course. It’s his belief that the 2022 Senior LPGA Championship will reset the bar for Salina’s sports past, present, and future.
If you think otherwise, let the debate begin.
“Salina Country Club is such an amazing choice for a venue,” he says. “I know the city cares about it and will make it an exceptional experience for those legends. It’s a world championship. It’s for keeps.
Now president of the Kansas Golf Foundation, Norton’s career highlights include winning the 2010 USGA Men’s State Team Championship title with Tyler Shelton and Charlie Stevens, finishing runner-up in the 2003 U.S. Mid-Amateur, making four appearances in the U.S. Open and tying for seventh in the PGA Tour’s Independent Insurance Agent Open in 1991.
“Something like this in Salina just doesn’t happen,” he says.
The makings of something big
One of the city’s own and another who played quarterback at Emporia State were instrumental in bringing the Senior LPGA Championship to Salina.
Local businessman Jason Ingermanson, whose portfolio at his company JRI Hospitality includes ownership of more than 70 Freddy’s Frozen Custard & Steakburgers nationwide, purchased Salina Country Club in May 2021, potentially saving it from who knows what.
At the time, the club founded in 1911 was fighting for its future. Now it appears to be winning that fight.
Since Ingermanson came aboard, membership has increased and upgrades to the club — such as a new driving range and other amenities — are in place or underway.
“We want the club to be in a position for the future, and to continue to be an outpouring of support and an attraction for the city of Salina and our loved members,” Ingermanson says.
Talks about potentially playing host to the Senior LPGA Championship escalated this past January. That’s when Ingermanson, course superintendent and Salina native Chris Rice, general manager/operating partner Chris Nickell and director of golf Erick Womack traveled to the PGA Show in Orlando and met with LPGA officials, including Tim Kramer, senior director of tournament business affairs for the LPGA’s Epson Tour — the LPGA’s official qualifying tour.
Kramer was a quarterback for Emporia State when the Hornets reached the NAIA championship game in 1989. One of his teammates on that national runner-up team, defensive lineman Leon Lett, went on to win three Super Bowls with the Dallas Cowboys.
“We were in Salina four, five years ago examining the possibility of bringing the Symetra Tour (now Epson Tour) to Salina,” says Kramer, whose father, Larry, coached that Emporia State football team and later joined coach Bill Snyder’s staff at K-State.
“When the Senior LPGA Championship was looking for a home, this membership group was interested in showcasing their facility. I think Kansas is a great golf state, a great sports state.”
More big-ticket memories in Salina
Other Salina facilities have played leading roles in the town’s marquee sports history.
Marymount College, across the street from Salina Country Club, overlooks the Smoky Hill River. It started in 1922 as a women’s college before going co-ed.
More than 50 years ago, Marymount launched the men’s basketball program and hired Ken Cochran as coach. A star high school athlete in Joplin, Missouri, he was a member of the U.S. Olympic baseball team in 1956. Cochran introduced his invention and popular arcade game Pop-A-Shot in 1981.
Cochran built a small college powerhouse at Marymount. On Nov. 28, 1975, the Spartans welcomed the defending Olympic gold medal Soviet Union national team as part of a 14-game U.S. tour. The tour included a win over Notre Dame and loss to eventual 1975-76 undefeated national champion Indiana.
Rockhurst University golf coach Richard Konzem, who’s from Salina, was in attendance for the game against the Soviets at Marymount’s Smoot Gymnasium.
“The old saying of people hanging from the rafters — that was true,” says Konzem, who for over two decades worked in the University of Kansas athletics department, including as senior associate athletics director. “I want to say the gym held 2,200, but there were more than that at the game.
“Our high school coach at Salina Central, Dave Lindsey, did color for KSAL (radio). He studied so hard from our Russian teacher, Valentine Stein, to make sure he said the players’ names properly. For Salina to get that huge of an event. … I don’t think anything can top that.”
Norton was in the crowd that day, too.
“That blew me away. The fire marshal must’ve been squirming,” Norton says. “It was during the Cold War and Russia had beaten us (in the 1972 Munich Olympics final) in a controversial ending. There were all these hard feelings, and we thought we’d been ripped off.”
Marymount, which went on to finish third that season in the NAIA tournament, fell 78-75 to a Soviet team led by Aleksandr Belov and Sergei Belov. The Soviets overcame a 19-point effort by Marymount’s Jim Hearns.
That Spartans also included Nino Samuel. He moved to Salina as a teen and was a dominant prep player who started at Kansas before transferring to Marymount, which closed its doors more than 30 years ago.
When Jordan and the U.S. Pan American team coached by K-State’s Jack Hartman came to Salina for the exhibition game on July 30, 1983, the iconic Jordan put on a show. He scored 30 points (teammates included Chris Mullin, Wayman Tisdale and Sam Perkins) as the collegians pummeled an NBA squad that featured Alex English and was coached by Cotton Fitzsimmons The final score: 112-77.
The Star sent reporter Steve Richardson to cover the game at the Bicentennial Center, which wasn’t sold out: About 600 of the 7,000 tickets went unused. At the time, many people, especially in the country’s midsection, were still talking about what had occurred less than a week earlier: the George Brett pine tar game.
KC Times columnist Jonathan Rand wrote about the pine tar game, noting, “The burning national issue entered its sixth day Friday with continued major network exposure. What’s next, a Senate committee to hold hearings on the matter?”
Jordan wrote an early chapter to his personal story in Salina. A month later, the U.S. team won the Pan Am games in Venezuela.
“They had the biggest name in college basketball. It was a big deal,” says Richardson, who worked for The Star and Times from 1976-87 and is currently the executive director at the Football Writers Association of America. “That game probably qualified as the biggest thing in Salina at the time.
“But this (the Senior LPGA) is a championship. The Jordan game was an exhibition. So, the golf probably trumps the other.”
The time is near
For Salina, moments like these come along only once in a while. Sorenstam, though, is honored to be part of what might be remembered as the spectacle of all spectacles in Salina.
“I’m looking forward to getting back to Kansas for the first time in years to compete in my first Senior LPGA Championship,” she said. “The LPGA has meant so much to me and my career, so I want to support this event. We appreciate the opportunity to play.”
Obviously, Salina does have its share of sports history. According to published reports, ageless wonder and Hall of Fame pitcher Satchel Paige played for the Salina Blue Jays in 1960. The Heart of Kansas Pro-Am was instrumental to the city’s golf footprint for several decades.
Salina native Randy Syring is a Marymount graduate (yes, he attended the 1975 game). He served as the country club’s golf pro from 1988 to 2017 and received numerous honors, including the 2004 Midwest Section PGA Golf Professional of the Year.
For him, what is about to go down in his hometown is unparalleled.
“It’s no doubt the most significant sports event Salina has ever had,” he says. “Annika playing in the tournament is a game-changer.
“It’s difficult to rank it compared to the Marymount game or Jordan game. But if you combine economic impact to Salina and the level of national attention, this one comes out on the top.”
Senior LPGA: fast facts
WHAT: Senior LPGA Championship, presented by The Bennington State Bank.
WHEN: July 18-24. A Pro-Am gets things startd on July 21; the championship rounds will take place July 22-24.
WHERE: Salina (Kan.) Country Club
WHO: Stars Annika Sorenstam and Juli Inkster are scheduled to play in the event that features more than 70 women golf professionals and eligible amateurs.
CHARITY: This year, the tournament’s beneficiary is Love, Chloe Foundation, a local non-profit that works to provide hope for families facing a childhood cancer diagnosis.
MORE DETAILS: For more information, including details about tickets and parking, visit https://salinacountryclub.com/2022-senior-lpga-championship/
Howard Richman was a sports reporter for The Star from 1984 to 2008.
